Building the right infrastructure to support a growing number of remote workers involves numerous decisions. Among them: Where to place products, functions, and applications.

The majority of organizations have decided on business-application placement (for ERP, CRM, payroll and other financial applications, HR applications, etc.) They have or are moving them to a centralized data center, supported by a (hopefully) robust, reliable WAN. In fact, 57% already are completely centralized, and another 32% have most centralized.

Additionally, they keep storage, databases, voicemail/unified messaging servers, and management tools at a central location.

At the branch locations, most companies house as little as possible because they do not have the IT resources to manage them at or near the sites. Typically, they place wireless LAN equipment, switches and routers, firewalls, and synchronous optimization products. In some cases, such as with point-of-sale applications in the retail market, they may keep applications locally when they can’t afford to build enough redundancy in the WAN.

Beyond these, though, there are a whole set of products or applications that can go either place. These include print and file servers, IP telephony switches, Intrusion-Detection Systems/Intrusion-Prevention Systems, presence and IM servers, optimization products, DHCP/DNS, videoconferencing, and contact-center solutions.

Deciding what to place where should involve a team of people representing all areas of IT, network, telecom, and applications. When considering the best approach, consider the following:

1.) Are you using managed services? If so, the third party can manage the application or equipment either in the branch or at headquarters, so location isn’t as important as if you’re trying to control everything internally.

2.) How much room do you have at branch locations? Small sites may not have the closet space, or the cooling capacity, to support multiple servers and switches.

3.) Can you effectively monitor, manage, and troubleshoot the remote locations? If not, either buy appropriate monitoring and management tools or keep products centralized along with the IT staff.

4.) What is your backup strategy? If you put too many functions centrally and the WAN goes down, how do the numerous branch workers do their jobs? That may dictate the need for a more resilient WAN, or to place certain products/functions in the branch.

Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click  here for the newsletter archive.